


two years late

by lookingforatardis



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Apathetic Armie ... sort of, Longing, M/M, MY POWER DIED WHILE TRYING TO POST YALL ARE WELCOME I AM DEDICATED, Memories, Moving, woe is me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: Armie reminisces about Timmy while walking through the old house one last time, feeling lost in memories of what they had and the potential of what could have been.





	two years late

**Author's Note:**

> I've got two songs for yall tonight: 2 Yrs Late by teddybear and BLANKTS (the song this is named for) and Please Don't Leave Quite Yet by Adam Agin (which is sort of just an honorable mention because I listened to it while writing the second half of the fic)
> 
> for the sad porn posse  
> xoxo

_Now I normally wouldn't say this_  
_But I think you gotta hear_  
_I know I'm two years late_  
_But shit I really miss you dear_

* * *

 

The beer warmed faster than I'd have liked, condensation stuck to my fingers with each pull. It settled against the hardwood floor and left a ring that would have pissed her off if she had been there. _We just had them done, Armie_ , I could practically hear. _Get a coaster_.

My legs stretched out; ankles rolled and cracked. The space always looked so big and empty until we were on the floor with the kids. Moonlight streamed in from the open bay window and it probably let a million bugs in, but I didn't care. We didn't live here anymore, it didn't matter. Not my problem.

The longer the silence dragged on, the more tempted I was to look outside. With a final gulp, I grabbed the beer and stumbled up onto my feet. It _clinked_ loudly when it hit the others in the recycling as I wandered through the kitchen, fingers grazing the dust starting to settle on the countertops. Another beer, another memory of him quietly trying to sift through the drawers for a bottle opener in the middle of the night because he was _convinced_ wine wouldn't make him gain weight like beer would. Back when his bones showed through his clothes and he needed me.

My eyes drifted over to the corner where Ford fell asleep in his arms for the first time, when he looked up with wide eyes and a grin, _I can't move, this is where I’m staying for the rest of the night_ , _he loves me._

My body carried me through the space to erase the memory, seeking warmth from outside where we used to lounge and grill. Parties run through my mind where liquor was passed like water and judgement was checked at the door, with people I'd considered family for most of my adult life. The first time Timmy was here for a barbeque, he had everyone falling at his feet by the end of the night, volunteers to help him inside when he'd gotten a little too drunk to walk in a straight line. He kissed me that night, a gentle thing, barely even there. But I felt it when I helped him into the guest bedroom, his fingers pressed against my shoulder as he laughed through it.

He helped Harper swim in that pool, held her by the waist and zoomed her around, made her laugh. The first and only time she accidentally called him _dad_ was in the shallow end when he stopped paying attention and she needed help. His eyes darted to mine, my own watered, Elizabeth laughing off something that fell deep into the pit of my stomach like longing—

The beer went down too easy. I should have insisted the liquor stayed back until the move was finished.

It didn't even matter anyway. This move felt surreal, more so than any before. It was almost as if they were moving without me; I'd come home to new plans for the house and updates to things I didn't realize existed. It was _beautiful_ , it was her vision. But it felt sudden.

My memory played tricks on me constantly, the empty rooms acting like sirens luring me to the space he lived in two years ago. It was vacant when I entered, when I sank to the floor. He used to have clothes all over the place, too tired to put them away properly. He'd slip into hoodies and slip under the covers and text me to come keep him company to avoid leaving bed when he had significant time off from filming. In Crema, he went out after hours a few nights a week. Here, he rarely left unless it was with me.

No one had bought the place yet, I had no idea if this room would be a nursery or bedroom or study. No one would know he slept here and confessed secrets to me, that these walls had seen us kiss and sob and cling to each other and fight over things I didn’t even care about anymore. No one would know this room was where he fell apart and pieced himself back together during that shoot, where I tried my damnedest to be there for him through it all.

My phone snapped a picture of it without me really making the decision, the empty walls sent in a text to him though the hours and his schedule never would have given me the quick reply I wanted. And when it came the next day, it was devoid of the emotion I sought, resigned in what I could only assume was his exhaustion at my lack of commitment to whatever he was to me.  

I used to make him keep his blinds open so I'd wake up with the sun and be able to sneak back into bed with her. He hated it; some nights wouldn't even ask me to come into his room because he didn't want to feel guilty. _We don’t even do anything, I shouldn't feel like shit for this._ I should have listened to him more.

She'd sent me back for the remaining things, a few boxes scattered throughout the place. I'd put them in the car hours ago but couldn't bring myself to leave. The second I did, it would be over, all of it, every memory. The room Harper took her first steps in, the walls she colored on last year, the fireplace we sat in front of for pictures, the room Elizabeth and I shared, where we were happy, _when_ we were happy.

The halls he leaned against, pushed me against, teased me in because the sound wouldn't travel, where he challenged me and questioned me and finally, late one night, told me he didn't want to want me.

The bathroom I held him in the day he came home shivering so violently that I started a bath before he could argue and eased him in, his hands clutched at my back until the cold left his bones.

The place the kitchen table used to sit, where he used to nudge my foot and hold my hand and make jokes about wildly inappropriate things when he knew he could get away with it. The spot on the porch we used to get high and honest, where he used to lay his head in my lap and push his hands under my shirt.

And I knew the new house would have new memories. The kids would make it their own and regardless of how things fell, I'd be there for as many as I could. But I'd missed countless opportunities with him in this house that wouldn't be repeated there, wouldn't be repeated _anywhere_.

I hear his voice in the stairwell telling me he needed more from me than _I really love it when you're here._ Hear it in the second-floor hallway telling me to make a choice. In the laundry room where he tried to kiss me and admitted defeat, told me to figure my shit out before everyone else did for me. To take accountability.

If anything, it was a blessing he was so far away and out of touch. It stopped me from calling, something I feared I'd do more and more of lately with everything building the way it was. I almost want him to yell at me, to scold me for things he warned me about, for decisions I'd made and _not_ made that now haunted me in my conscious state. He was right. I waited too long, and everyone decided everything for me. The house, the marriage, _him_. I surrendered control and lost more than I cared to admit. No, not surrendered. He would say I sat back, took the easy road.

In my car, the last of the boxes packed tight, I allowed myself one last glance at the life I lived in the rearview mirror before driving away. The road felt emptier than the house when I made my way to the new one. In the driveway, it looked ominous and unknown. There was no mistaking this was _her_ house, every detail added her own preference. The message had been clear when we did a walkthrough the other day. This was her home alright, and while we had never broached the subject, I understood that should I leave her, it would remain hers. I'd swallowed my pride and moved in, slept in a room that felt foreign, made breakfast in a kitchen I still struggled to navigate, and left to return to one I could. It was amicable between us, and I knew she didn’t _want_ us to split; if she did, she would have told me. Still, the house felt wrong.

In the end, it didn't really matter. Stay with her, be alone, it was all the same, because I knew I'd lost my chance with him long ago.

There had been moments I thought we'd find a way, figure this out and try to be together. And he would be there, willing to talk me through it or hold my hand (literally) through the difficulties. I couldn't explain why I couldn't do it, why I never pulled the trigger. I woke up one day and he seemed to stop answering calls in the middle of the night, his texts a little shorter, a little more composed. It was in my head; he'd told me as much when I asked if something was wrong. It was in my head. He was there, _stuck_ in my head, drenched in moments of uncertainty and lost opportunity.

The new house smelled different, some residual moving dust scattered along the painted wood. It was too clean, too pale. There was no color yet.

The kids slept in the same room while we sorted out their things, the two of them already fast asleep by the time I walked in to kiss their heads. As I turned, my heart stopped hard in my chest when Timmy's sweater caught my eye, folded carefully on Ford's changing station. It smelled like our laundry detergent and Ford, like a moment I might have had in another life. It stayed in my grip as I went to our bedroom, toed off my shoes, nodded when she asked if I got everything. She didn't question the sweater like she didn't question why it took five hours to grab half a dozen boxes.

I wandered downstairs to the kitchen, had to open three cupboards before finding a mug I could use to get some water. His sweater was entirely too small—I couldn't even get it over my arms to hold some part of him close. The couch we'd bought for the place wasn't quite as comfortable as the old one, but I sat on it to avoid going to bed just yet. Timmy would have gathered blankets or pillows to make it more like home, shoved his feet under my thighs or over them to stretch out, would have watched me watch tv.

I wasn't even sure when I'd see him next.

His sweater draped over my lap as I stared at the boxes we'd have to start unpacking tomorrow, the task of restarting our lives. Another fresh start. How many did we need? How many would be _too many_? Would I tire of this before her? Or would we continue until it stopped mattering, until we would fall into a state of absolute complacency? Were we already there?

Two years ago, Timmy was my entire life. He was the studded guide lights on a plane for emergencies. He sat with me for hours and hours and let me speak in circles because he understood each trace of thought perfectly without ever needing an explanation. And he still was all of that, of course he was. But he was more now, and somehow less.

I moved to look outside the window, his sweater over my shoulder as the moonlight caught on my new backyard. With a deep breath, I turned to look at the expanse of moving boxes and covered furniture, at the future I'd been given. His sweater nearly fell from my fingers, his voice in my mind from just a few weeks ago, _I don't know if I want to see the new place. I think I'm done with that whole charade._ He was haunting, the echo in my head almost as bad as the echo of the new living room.

"Armie?" Elizabeth called from the hallway, walking towards me as she crossed her arms. "What are you doing?" I looked at her and knew the choices I'd made had put me here. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. "Come to bed."

I folded Timmy's sweater and placed it on the edge of the couch with a sigh, the letters under my fingers like a prayer. I nodded once, an acknowledgement of what could have been, and followed her.

 

 


End file.
